Global Includes?

guppy

Hi all,

I like to know if it is possible to include a .php file in each different page, so that, when I update the particular .php file, the changes will be reflected in all pages?

For example: A navigation bar. Having a global .php file that contains the navigation bar codes would be useful since links might be added/removed frequently.

In .asp, it was possible with  tag. I'm not sure about php.

Any help would be appreciated 🙂

Thanks in advance

_SuperString

you have many options in PHP:

include 'page.php';
// include a page (can be used to include a page more than once
// and should be used outwith case or if statements

require 'page.php';
// same as include but should be used inside case or if statements

include_once 'page.php';
// same as include - but only one can be used per script run


require_once 'page.php'
// same as require - but only one can be used per script run

also note the above can be used as functions - include('page.php'), but its not really needed.

You have one more option than makes a php page global to the whole Server - its a variable called include_append (or similar) and its found in the PHP ini file, theres also one called include_prepend (or similar).

HTH's

$SuperString

morphy_6deex

Originally posted by $SuperString
you have many options in PHP:

include 'page.php';
// include a page (can be used to include a page more than once
// and should be used outwith case or if statements

require 'page.php';
// same as include but should be used inside case or if statements

$SuperString [/B]

can u explain better the difference among these?

ahundiak

can u explain better the difference among these?

Probably not as good as the manual can (hint). But basically, include allows the script to continue processing even if the file cannot be found while require causes the script to die if the file cannot be found.

And the _once suffixes ensure that only one copy is included even if there are multiple include statements for the same file.

In most cases, use require_once.

morphy_6deex

thats what i know... but superstring wrote bout require/include inside if statements... :/ ill do some tries as i can...

guppy

Hi $SuperString,

You mentioned using functions EG: include('page.php')

So, does it mean that it'll be appropriate to include this bit of code in every page where the navigation bar (or any other contents that I want it to appear in all pages)?

Rohan_Hill

Yes, that's exactly what it means 🙂 Just put include('page.php'); in all your scripts where you want the contents of page.php to be processed.

guppy

Ah, okie...

Thanks for all the information and help guys 🆒

timw

Originally posted by Rohan Hill
Yes, that's exactly what it means 🙂 Just put include('page.php'); in all your scripts where you want the contents of page.php to be processed.

Hello Rohan,

After I saw your comments about using the include() statement (see below), as well as your status as a "Senior Member," I decided to write to you to see if you could help me with a problem I'm having.

I followed all of the messages in this thread, but my experiments seem to indicate a particular limitation with the include() function that wasn't mentioned here. I too have created header and footer files that I would like to "wrap" around most but not all pages on my website. My original plan was to create these header & footer files, place them in one directory, and then call them on each page using include(). The problem I'm encountering is that the include() function only works when the file it is calling is located in the same directory as the script that is making that call. In other words, the only way to include the header and footer on all the pages that I want to have them is to place all the pages (header, footer, and content pages) in a single folder.

Have you found this to be the case as well? Some of our site's functionality depends upon having the files separated into different directories, so I can't really drop all the files into the same folder.

I've come across notes in the manual that talk about the include path and after checking our PHP configuration using phpinfo(), I see that it is configured to look in only two places. One is the directory of the calling script, which changes dynamically depending on where the calling script is located, and the other is a directory that I don't have access to - /usr/local/lib/php (we're on a shared server at Earthlink.net).

Well, my hands are tied. Any ideas on what I might be able to do to make this work? Here are a couple other limitations that bear in on this:

I don't want to include the header & footer on all pages (just most of them).
The header and footer files have PHP code in them, so readfile() wouldn't be a good choice for this either.

I'm beginning to think that the only option is to break the PHP code out of the header and footer files and create static html includes that can be brought in via readfile(). But this would still be a major bummer because I have 7 or 8 functions that would have to be embedded on each PHP page (by PHP page I'm referring to the script that reads in the static html files and builds the final page) which means there would no longer be a convenient way to update the entire site if those functions need to be changed.

Please accept my apologies for the length of this message (I'm an engineer by profession and tend to give every last detail when it comes to trouble-shooting!!).

Well, this is quite a pickle I'm in, and I'd definitely be grateful for any help you could offer.

Kind regards,
Tim

cschotch

I had the same problem then I did this....
I am in the guest/index.php file I have to do this

include("../header.php");

that was for 1 level up
if it was in a another folder up it would be

include("/folder/header.php");

or if you needed to go down then up a folder

include("../folder/header.php");

I hope I explained it well......

timw

cschotch,

Thanks very, very much for your help with using include() functions properly. What you suggested worked perfectly! You really got me out of a jam! 🙂

By the way, after I implemented your solution, I later found out that the DOCUMENT_ROOT variable can be used for a quick jump straight to the include file. For example, if I have a functions.php4 include file stored in the root directory of the document tree, something like the following also works:

$functions_path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/functions.php4";
include($functions_path);

Thanks again for your help!

Tim